While the major fallout from Gibbs' "the professional left" flap has died down a bit, a second round of examination seems to have begun -- one much more introspective and much less knee-jerk than the first round.

Robert Gibbs recently expressed his frustration with what he called the "professional left." Who would have thought that Obama's biggest problem in his first few years in office would be one of communication?

What puts this first year in perspective for me is that: Obama may not be smarter than all of us, but he sure is smarter by a long shot than McCain would have been. And that, for now, is enough for me.